As mentioned before, Charles Band grew up reading Marvel comics during the 50s and 60s while living in Italy. One aspect of Marvel comics he loved was the crossover, where characters from one storyline would meet up with another. When he got older and started producing his own movies, Band wanted to incorporate crossovers between his own franchises. He tried doing this with 1986’s Eliminators and the anthology Pulse Pounders, but Empire collapsed before he had the opportunity. Once he founded Full Moon, he started up several franchises in the hopes of them crossing over at some point. Originally, Puppet Master 4 was to be a crossover with Demonic Toys, but they decided to go in another direction. Instead, Charles Band decided to crossover Demonic Toys with the earlier hit Dollman, along with adding elements from Bad Channels. The result was the 1993 crossover film, Dollman vs. Demonic Toys.
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Synopsis
Intergalactic cop Brick Bardo (Tim Thomerson) is traveling to the small town of Pahoota looking for a recently shrunken-down woman. Said shrunken-down woman is Nurse Ginger (Melissa Behr), who was left 11″ tall after the events of Bad Channels. Meanwhile, Judith Grey (Tracy Scoggins) has been staking out the Toyland Warehouse despite being suspended from the force. After being forced out of the warehouse by the police, Judith seeks out Brick and Ginger to help her out. Though skeptical, the two decide to tagalong and find security guard Ray Vernon (Phil Fondacaro) working with the demonic toys. A firefight ensues, where Ray’s shot, Judith’s shot by the robot Mr. Static, and Brick shoots Mr. Static in response. After Judith dies, Brick makes it his personal mission to take on the remaining demonic toys and stop their plans. Will the demonic toys succeed, or will Brick be able to stop them?
Review
Dollman vs. Demonic Toys promises a lot from its title, but unfortunately, it doesn’t quite live up to its potential. Having the Dollman squaring up against the Demonic Toys makes sense and should be awesome, and it kind of is. As per usual, Tim Thomerson shines as the wise-cracking Brick Bardo, spouting off one-liners while blasting toys with his gun. Tracy Scoggins also does a good job, clearly having fun with her role and giving it her all. Melissa Behr, on top of being drop-dead gorgeous, has a fun, snarky, and fierce personality as the shrunken-down nurse. The puppet effects are pretty solid, the design of the new Zombietoid standing out as an exaggerated GI Joe. They even use some suits and inflatables for the scenes where the toys share the screen with Dollman. While there’s a clearly noticeable difference, it works for this kind of movie.
Unfortunately, the film has plenty of flaws that drag it down, preventing it from being a Full Moon classic. For one, about half of the film is comprised of stock footage from the earlier films framed as flashbacks. With only 30 minutes of original footage, the film clocks in at roughly an hour and some change in length. Even by Full Moon standards, that length is pretty anemic considering the material they had to work with. They could’ve expanded upon the lore from the previous films, but they don’t do much of anything with it. Not only that, but they screw around with the continuity of the previous films, most especially Bad Channels. Given the period in Full Moon’s history that this was made, this is quite the sore spot in that era. Overall, Dollman vs. Demonic Toys is ok, but there are better Full Moon movies you could watch.
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